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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Guest Post: Are You Programmed to AM or FM?

Today I have the honor of having a guest post from JoAnn Kline. JoAnn M. Kline, MBA, is a lifelong learner, entrepreneur, author, and writer. She endeavors to motivate and empower others through her life's journey to serve God. JoAnn stays busy with her Facebook Page, The Business of Home, and she also author's two columns called "Contentment Quest" and "Savvy Cents & Sensibility" through the monthly newspaper publication called "The Valley Newspaper

Are
Your Programmed to AM or FM?

by JoAnn M. Kline

Many of us have a favorite radio
station that we enjoy listening to, or a favorite TV channel that we tune into
daily. But, what about “your”
channel? What are “you” programmed
to? Is your personal channel programmed
to AM (against me) or FM (for me)? Before I continue, I guess I should issue a
disclaimer that I in no way am
insinuating that one type of radio channel is better than the other – AM or
FM. I am simply using the AM and FM
letters to get my point across for this month’s article.

What are you tuned into on a daily
basis? Are you tuned into a lifestyle
and life circumstances that are AM (against me), or are you bebop’n to life
circumstances on the FM (for me) dial?
Research has concluded that our health can be affected by our
self-talk. The Mayo Clinic determined
that our outlook on life and our attitudes toward ourselves can affect our
physical health. Some research studies
have shown that our personality traits (such as being positive or negative thinkers)
can affect many areas of our health and well-being. Positive thinking is associated with proper
stress management, and effective stress management is associated with health
benefits. On the flip side, negative
thinking, pessimistic attitudes, and negative self-talk are all associated with
dis-ease in the body and mind. The
dis-ease also known as anxiety, worry, and agitation can result in health
deterioration over time. I know I have
said it a million times, but it’s worth repeating again, we all must work hard
to rid negative thinking tendencies from our life. Many times negative thinking is a byproduct
of the automatic thoughts we produce as a result of our human
“conditioning.” In other words, negative
thinking and self-talk has become a habit.
Habits can be ingrained in us, and often they are ingrained over many
years, but habits can be broken or altered.
It is our own personal decision to determine where we want to tune our
thinking and doing dial – AM or FM.

Researchers continue to explore the
benefits of positive thinking and optimism on health. The Mayo Clinic listed several health
benefits on their website that are linked to positive thinking. Below is a short list of some of the
benefits:

·Increased life span

·Lower rates of depression

·Lower levels of distress

·Greater resistance to the common cold

·Better psychological and physical
well-being

·Reduced risk of death from
cardiovascular disease

·Better coping skills during hardships
and times of stress

One
research theory deems that positive thinkers cope better with stressful
situations therefore they experience less harmful effects of stress.

Do you know how to spot and identify
negative self-talk? Common forms of
negative self-talk are:

Filtering
– Magnification of the negative aspects while filtering out positive aspects. For example, you had a relatively productive
day at work but you choose to focus on the one thing that you didn’t get
accomplished. Another instance is
filtering what you see in other people.
For example, you choose to “see” or discuss lack rather than credit
people for accomplishments they attained.
You may see someone who is struggling to find adequate employment or
choose to further their education, rather than settle for their current
underemployment situation. But rather
than support them for their efforts to better themselves you focus on
criticisms – which just creates more stress for the individual.

Personalizing
–
The act of automatically blaming yourself when something bad occurs. For example, you were looking forward to an
evening out with friends but plans got cancelled. You believe the plans were cancelled because
no one wanted to be around you.

Catastrophing
–
You always anticipate the worst.
Something goes wrong in you everyday life and you assume the remainder
of your day will be a disaster. For
example, you order coffee at the local drive-thru window, you pick-up, pay for
the order, and leave. You sip the coffee
to find it is bitter and black when you ordered sugar and cream – entire day
ruined!

Polarizing
–
You see things as either good or bad – no middle ground. In your mind, if things aren’t perfect, then
it’s a total failure. For example, you
work extra hard on a school assignment and receive the grade of a “B” rather
than the anticipated “A” for all of the hard work and sacrificing necessary to
give the assignment all you got. You are
downtrodden about the “B” because it wasn’t the coveted “A” rather than
rejoicing in the fact that it still a good grade.

·I’ve never done that before – It’s an
opportunity to learn something new

·I don’t have the resources – I’ll tackle
it from a different angle

·I’m too lazy to get this done – I will
re-examine my priorities

·There’s no way that will work! – I can
try to make it work

·No one communicates with me – I will
open the channels of communication

·I’m not good at this – I will give it
another (and another, and another) try

We
can choose to focus on positive thinking is we so wish. The process to turn negative thinking and
self-talk into positive thinking and self-talk is simple, yet it does require a
bit of practice. If you are ready to
change your channel and tune into the FM frequency here are a few ways to
behave more positively:

·Identify areas to change – what must
change? What do you think negatively about?

·Check yourself – periodically stop and
think about what you are thinking and feeling at that moment. Is it good or bad?

·Surround yourself with positive people –
DO NOT give negative people any space in your life. Only give space to those who support you and
your endeavors.

·Practice positive self-talk – DO NOT say
anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to someone else. Give yourself the same respect & honor
you offer others.

Set
the dial to FM frequency today. The
world needs more optimism and positivity.
The world needs you to be the best you can possibly be. The world needs you to have the strength and
focus to reach your fullest potential.
The world needs you to help spread the light – spread the
positivity. Are you up for it? Are you up for contributing to what the world
needs? Of course you are! Get up, get tuned in to FM, give the world
your best, and watch the light spread!

“The
one who is optimistic is able to spread the rays of happiness all around... He
is able to enjoy seeing only this positive aspect, filling himself with
positivity, the happiness spreads around and touches the lives of those
around.” ~Brahma Kumaris